The exact number of citations one business needs to be successful has always been a topic for discussion. This is because citations have a huge impact on the business’s ranking position on Google, and thus on how well it is visible to the potential customers. Nowadays, online reputation is an important segment of every marketing strategy. It is not easy to rank high, since Google takes good care of what it shows on its first page. Businesses with numerous well-built and high-quality citations appear among the top search results, and so people visit them more often than the others. But how many citations do we need, and are 50 major citations enough? These are the questions we are going to give answers to today.
Defining the term ‘citations’
When the basic information about your business is mentioned online, we can say that counts as a citation. Since these online references serve as a kind of information source for all the people interested in your business area, they necessarily need to include the business’s name, address, and phone number. It is highly important for this NAP information to be consistent and accurate if you want to be trustworthy to both Google and your potential customers. However, the NAP is not the only information that you can provide in your citation. For example, you can add your own website’s URL, too. All in all, one thing is for sure, the more people know about you, the more they will trust you and your service.
The reasons why citations are important
The importance of properly-build citations is visible on many levels. First of all, Google takes these online mentions as a reliable local SEO ranking factor. They help Google decide which businesses deserve to appear on the first search results page. When a directory, a site, or some social network where you list your citation is trusted, that adds some quality to your online presence. That is why business owners pay a lot of attention to how and where they build their citations.
On the other hand, by reaching high ranking positions you also earn the customers’ trust. Experience has shown that people usually find everything they want to know on the first Google search page. They tend to connect the ranking position with reliability. However, this logic is not bad at all, since Google uses it itself, too. Here again, the accuracy of the information plays a crucial part. If the customers can’t rely on them, they won’t be able to consume your services. So, no matter how successful your business is at the current moment, it is crucial to take care of the value of your citations and correct all the faults as soon as you notice them.
The importance of numbers – are 50 major citations enough?
As we have previously mentioned, your online visibility highly depends on the number of times your business is mentioned or referred to. But, the real point here is to have more citations than the other competitors within your industry. And, truth to speak, not all industries are so competitive. Experienced business owners already know what they need to do to increase their ranking. However, even if you are new to the world of online marketing, you can easily get to the point. Especially if you rely on the experts from AZ Citation Services to help you out a bit.
Recent studies
Statistics tell us that the number of necessary citations naturally rises as we deal with the more competitive industries. However, the average number rarely goes under 70 citations per business. What’s more, if you enter a strong business area such as hotels or restaurants, these numbers can reach even more than a hundred. That makes it clear that 50 major citations won’t be enough no matter what kind of business you are running.
Just for example, in almost every more competitive industry you’ll need approximately 81 citations if you want to reach the top ranking results. To be precise, the number one position usually has at least 86 citations, on average, while lower positions such as ninth or tenth count 75.
However, although these numbers are important and can make a difference, a mere focus on the quantity will bring you no good. The thing is that citation building is a serious task, and it requires devotion. Only good-quality citations can help your ranking. That’s why your business can’t become successful overnight.
Take everything under control
A detailed citation-building strategy can help your business reach higher positions on SERP. What’s more, if you combine it with a good link-building strategy, you’ll have a win-win situation. But, you need to be very careful here. Every low-quality link or citation can ruin your ranking in no time. That’s why you need to manage your citations and analyze websites that link back to your site regularly.
- If you decide to check all your citations manually, you’ll soon figure out that may be too much work to do for one person. But, experts in the field decided to give you a helping hand here. With good tools or professional help, you can easily detect inconsistent citations, and correct all the mistakes – do the citation cleanup.
- Backlinks from some bad websites that are irrelevant to your business area, can also have a negative impact on your ranking. Luckily, nowadays, Google became more aware of these spammy links which bring no value to your business. Whenever it comes across such a link, it simply ignores it, and thus helps you and protects your ranking.
Now that you made the story about citations clear, and when you got the answer to the question- are 50 major citations enough, you can start taking your first steps. Remember, this journey won’t be easy, but if you follow the rules, the first real results will come sooner than you expect them.
